Bullet
by crazygee
Summary: She doesn't like to talk, she knows it and so does everyone else. Her secrets need to be written down. Her whole life needs to be documented. This is the story of how Sarah Walker wrote her spy will. Set around Season 2.


**Disclaimer**: I own up to nothing.

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_ If you are reading this, then it has most likely come to the possibility that I am dead. In here can be found everything I know, important pieces of information that I have deemed necessary to_

_ You may know me by a lot of names, some of which could be Sarah Walker, a name assigned to me when I was recruited to the CIA when I was_

_ I am Jenny._

_ I am Rachel._

_ I am Rebecca._

_ My real name is Samantha Lisa_

_ I don't know who I am anymore._

She crumples the sheet of paper and finally concedes defeat. She will never get this done. Not like this. She picks up her lighter and burns the paper to ashes. Her eyes begin to water. She blames the smoke and lingering scent of 7 sheets of paper now turned into ash in a nearby dustbin. She tries to convince herself that they are the cause of the stinging in her eyes. She will not cry over this. She will not.

She does anyway, unwillingly and uncontrollably.

"_Such a professional and seasoned agent you are Sarah Walker, such a god damned robot who can turn her emotions on and off",_ she tells herself. She wipes her eyes and takes a deep breath. She knows that she has to do this. The longer she puts this off for later, she might never get the chance of doing this properly. It has been years since she first made this letter, and with the time that passed her by, came more knowledge that needed to be stored elsewhere. That elsewhere was a place other than her brain. She doesn't like to talk, she knows it and so does everyone else. Her secrets need to be written down. Her whole life needs to be documented. If she fades away and becomes nothing but a memory, an inevitable outcome for her line of work, at least the piece of paper will be ample proof that _she_ existed. She, referring to the real her, and not the names, mannerisms, personality traits she craftily stole from others or she herself created and later claimed as her own.

All those disguises, names, tics and personas that are now a convoluted mess inside her brain, cloud everything else. She can't dig deep enough to look for her beginnings. All she has are the specifics. She knows her real name, real birthday, real parents, real birthplace and other details you could pull from the system—provided that you have clearance. But those pieces of information are just facts: places, dates, measurements, names that should mean everything yet reveal nothing at the same time.

So what if her real name is Sam and not Sarah? Does it truly make a difference? It should. But to her amazement, it doesn't. These facts don't matter. These details don't hold much weight, all because she has lost Sam many years ago. She lost herself and she doesn't know how to get her back. She doesn't know if she even wants to get her back.

Who is she, really? What does she want?

She wills herself to start yet again so she tries a different approach. She discards her pen. She blinks away other tears and coughs up the dryness in her throat. She turns on her laptop and tries to begin.

She tries and fails. Again.

Her fingers rest on the keyboard, her eyes fixate on the screen and yet, she can't find it in her heart to continue. She stares at the blinking cursor. On and off it goes. One second it blends with the white canvass all around it, and another second, it sticks out like a sore thumb only to disappear yet again. The sick cycle continues and yet, her staring never ceases. She absent mindedly fixates her eyes on the black line until it's all she can see when she deliberately closes her eyes to shut off everything else. In that white canvass of her mind's eye, she sees the black cursor, sometimes blending in and sometimes standing out.

She is the cursor, she realizes. No matter how successfully she tries to blend into this _world of pretend_ her job demands, her abnormal life as what _he_ often described it, will always surface and keep on eating away at her conscience.

"_You don't deserve him_", the voice in her head repeats and repeats, the gravity of its meaning never losing its sting, the bittersweet truth it brings. The sweet part of the truth strengthened by the fact that his innocence will remain untainted, his integrity, goodness and what makes him _great_ will forever be separate from _her_, a person whose eyes has been witness to the cruelty this world sadly has. Not only has her eyes seen, her hands too have taken part of that cruelty, though not the same kind, and yet, still somehow similar. She takes comfort of the fact that someday, when _this is all over_, he, who has changed her life so damn much, will live a normal life once again, just as he has always wanted. He will exactly be just as who he is today, the same man who was and still is able to breach through her walls. He made and makes her want to be a normal person, something she never dared of dreaming again.

Years earlier, when she took the Director's offer of a second chance, to right the wrongs she has done, and atone for the sins of her father, she altogether gave up the idea of a normal and peaceful life. She never had a taste of it, in all honesty, which is why giving it up never seemed to chip away at her heart like how it feels now.

Today, she seems to be living vicariously through him, him and his normalcy where his happiness becomes her happiness. The blacks and whites of this world through his eyes recolor the grays her career has opened her eyes to. She sees the world differently through him. And she wonders if this change in her is permanent or temporary. A part of her wants the former but whenever he reiterates the fact that he misses his old life she feels the weight of her guilt dragging her down. _I should want this job to be temporary. I should._ She says to herself, ever trying to force her heart to want to leave, trying and yet always failing.

_When this is over, I will miss this, _her heart tells her–her heart which she has locked away in some ill-forgotten place, or so she thought, which she surprisingly found on the day she met him, not many years ago. She will miss this feeling, a life that seems surreal with her two selves, the agent and the woman, finally able to find a common ground–purpose.

He has given her a purpose, a sense of living not just for an abstract idea of integrity, loyalty and love for her country and people, but a sense of living for the real and tangible manifestation of loving in part, in whole, in totality of her being. With him, she has come to know parts of herself she never knew existed and discovered and re-discovered emotions she never knew she'll have the luxury of feeling. It was a blessing and a curse, a privilege and deadweight, the pros and the cons tearing her apart because of this one fact: she doesn't deserve him. She doesn't deserve this happiness, this freedom, however fleeting it might be.

Here enters the bitter part of that truth. When this is all over, she'll be long gone; off in a far-away place doing her country's bidding like a ghost while _he _goes back to his old life and continues living the life she now wants to share. He will be happy, finally, and yet without her. She will live vicariously through him, and it will never be enough. It used to be. But now, nothing is enough. Nothing will ever be enough. She will always want more and it terrifies her to no end. Now that she finally had a taste of what it could be like for her to be a person again, she strongly wonders if she will ever have the strength to leave this all behind, and bury the wants and the dreams she used to never allow herself to have and go back to where she once was: a life devoid of feeling, wanting and dreaming.

She is long past denying now. For months she has told herself that what she feels for him is nothing short of a handler putting her asset's safety as her high priority. But when the time came when she herself felt jealousy spark selfishness within her that she knew was out of place, it made her realize that he was more than an asset to her. Her possessiveness that turned into a longing, that want that evolved into a need, cemented the fact that she is now way in over head.

Her whole life now revolves around him.

She seeks him out, his presence a soothing calm. She touches him more than is allowed, sweet little gestures that assure her he is safe, here, real and never leaving. Her eyes linger at his form, his face, his smile, awakening her heart to pangs of longing, butterflies and warmth.

Will she be able to forget how she feels for him, how much she wants him and how often she dreams of having a normal life with him? She should. But is she able to? Can she leave? Can she forget?

No, she can never willfully leave him, she realizes. No, she too can never forget. She has never felt more herself until the day he became a part of her life. It will take a bullet, a knife, a sharp edged object, a deadly blow, a freak accident or poison to make her leave him permanently. Because deep down she knows, she will always find ways to come back.

A sad smile graces her lips. A lone tear runs down her cheek. She wipes it hastily. Thoughts of him finally make her able to continue.

She starts typing, thinking that if there is anyone in the world who deserves the truth more than anyone else, it's him.

She addresses it to him, imagining that someday, she'll have the guts to hand to him her life, everything she knows, everything she was and is.

She finally finishes.

She ends it with three words.

Everything was real.


End file.
